Hello, Glove and LS.
>===== Original Message From glove <moq_discuss@moq.org> =====
>Donny writes:
>
>>Taoism and Zen, especially, are quite
>>anti-social, anti-technology, anti-scholastic, and anti-intellectual. All
>>that stuff leads you further away from at-one-ment and further into the S-O,
>>I-This thought trap.
>
>
>Donny, you will not learn about zen in any book and you cannot study it at
>all in any fashion as you do philosophy.
Yes! Yes! Yes! I agree. I'm skeptical whether we should even use the term
"philosophy" in refrence to Hinduism, Buddhism, Ch'an, Taoism... I think it
was Hustan Smith (or else it was Joseph Campbell) who -- after a trip to Japan
-- said that we had our understanding of Zen all wrong because koans and
paradoxes, riddles and mind-games, really have little at all to do w/ Zen.
Zen is about how you serve tea, throw a pot, shoot a bow, dress, decorate your
home, fix your motercycle, keep your garden...
I do remember that in *Tao of Physics* Capra says thet the best book on Zen is
*Zen and the Art of Archery* because it never mentions "Zen" in it anywhere.
There's a bit in ZMM where the Narator says 'If I were really clever i'd write
a fictionalized account of this, developing plot and characters, and perhaps
teaching a few things about Zen and Art and maybe even motercycle maintinace
along the way. But I'm not that clever and these arn't characters but people I
know.'
(Ha ha, Mr. Pirsig.) ;-)
GLOVE:
>Donny, i am not really qualified to speak of either zen or taoism, but i can
>say from experience that zen is both like and unlike everything you write it
>is, and yet nothing you could write can ever really define zen. we would
>all do well to remember Pirsigs advice..."But be careful to
>follow the scientific rule of saying no more than you really know."
>(From Ant McWatt's paper- Pirsig's Metaphysics of Quality).
I would avoid any blanket stament like: "You can't learn about Zen from
books," because the first rule of philosophy is also the first rule of life:
You've got to start somewhere.
But I basically agree w/ you. I had the opertunity to attend a Taoist ritual
hosted by a Tai-chi master living in Chattanooga, TN -- "Recieving the Tao" he
called it. This was after I'd read Capra and the *Lao-Chuang* and maybe a few
other books on Taoism, and the ceramony was nothing like what I was expecting,
and (like Pheadrus in India) I even found myself a little dissapointed.
Maybe I could clearify my prior statments more...
1) Ch'an (Tao/Zen) is anti-social.
Taoist philosophy is very similer to the philosophy of Henry David Thoreau.
It is based on a 'back to nature' and even a 'screw society' attitude.
"It is individuals who must reforme themselves if society is to be reformed;
not a reformed society will reforme men." (Thoreau)
"When will we learn that a million men are of no importance compared w/ one
man." (Thoreau)
"I came into this world not chiefly to make this a good place to live, but to
live in it, be it good or bad." (Thoreau)
The standerd legend about the founding of Taoism is that it begain in the
Waring States period when Lao-tzu became completly dissallusioned w/ society.
He desided to leave China (well, there wsn't really a "China" yet, but 'to
leave the civilized provinces and live in the wilderness'). He got to the wall
and was stoped by a gatekeeper whose name is recorded... I can't think of it
now, I'd have to look it up. But this gatekeeper had heard of Laotzu and
refused to let him leave and take all his wisdom w/ him. He commanded laotzu
to write down his wisdom first, but Laotzu refused because he knew that
anything he wrote would only be later mis-understood and mis-used. At length
he gave in and wrote the Tao te Ching.
"The way that can be 'wayed'(trail-blazed) is not the true way." (Laotzu)
So goes the ledgend. Of course scholars debate whether "Laotzu" ever really
even existed -- perhaps a group of people assemboled the 80-odd poems of the
Tao Te Ching, perhaps over a number of years... Steven Bokenkamp (whome I met
when he visited UT on a lecture tore a few years beck) has even put forth a
pretty convincing theory that the Tao te Ching is actually a pollitical guide
written for the benifet of the king, and, yes, you can read it that way and
there is some historic evidence. But is we are to strictlly follow Pirsig's
"scientific" rule here we'd really say nothing at all -- Nothing about Taoism
is known for sure. Ask even 3 Taoist sages and get 3 diffrent pictures. ask 3
scholars and get 3 more.
2) Ch'an is anti-technology.
There's a bit in the *Chang-tzu* where he says that it's better to have a
simple well w/ no wench and raise and lower the bucket directly, than to have
a well w/ a wench. Live as simply as possible. Simplify, simplify, simplify!
In the *Guidebook to ZMM*, Taoism is analyzed, and the authers suggest that,
concerning the problems John had w/ his BMW, Laotzu would have said, "Simply
get rid of the BMW." There is, in the *Guidebook*, an imagined diologue
between Pheadrus and Laotzu that is worth reading. Pheadrus charges that only
a few people can really live a simple primative life like Laotzu (and also
Thoreau) recommends. Laotzu comes back w/ the charge that even fewer people
will be able to find inner-peace amid the din of technology, fast-paced world,
"death force" as Pheadrus recomends. A good point, isn't it?
I could also discuss the crude, "primative" craftsmanship of Zen art and
artisanship in Korea and Japan, and I could compare all this to Thoreau's
*Walden* experiment... but I'll spare you. You get the drift.
3) Ch'an is anti-scholastic/intellectual.
There's a famous story about Liang K'ai, the 6th Patriarch of Zen Buddhism,
who studied Buddhism for some time unsucesfully. After he suddenly hit
enlightenment after witnessing a simple gesture made by a Zen Master, he
destroyed his Sutras, the Buddhist holy books.
We've both agreed that Zen isn't really something that can be put down in
books. the whole tradition of koans and paradoxes is a retreat from rational
thought.
In ZMM, first Pheadrus' then the Narator's "philosophizing" is shown to be a
low-quality activity. Pheadrus' "waves of crystilization" damaged Chris, and
the Chataquwa, the real villion of the story, continues to drive apart father
and son, endangering them both. Thus the irony behind the Narator's statment,
'I think metaphysics is good only if it is good for everyday, practical life.
Otherwise, forget it.' All this self-reflecting irony, loaded throughout ZMM,
is part of what makes it such an extreemly well-written book. But that's
another topic entierly.
(BTW, did any of you know that Machavelli actually wrote *The Prince* as a
satire? He was actually a supporter of democracy, but he couldn't come out and
say this because the Medici would kill him. But correspondace between he and
his intimats comferm this, and that *The Prince* was acctually a sort of joke
on the Medici. Life's funny, isn't it!)
But anyway, there are three staments about Tao/Zen, all of which are (as you
correctly point out, Glove) true... and also not true. Thank's for giving me
the opportunity to elaborate a little.
TTFN (ta-ta for now)
Donny
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